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SMS by Vonage

The Vonage SMS connector allows your users to interact with your Teneo bot using SMS messages.

This Node.js connector acts as middleware between Vonage SMS API and a Teneo bot to implement SMS communication with persisting state and conversational position. Visit Vonage for more information.

Vonage Logo

The source code for this connector can be found on Github.

The Vonage SMS connector enables a Teneo bot to communicate with users by receiving and sending SMS messages. This Node.js connector acts as middleware between Vonage SMS API and a Teneo bot to implement SMS communication with persisting state and conversational position. Visit Vonage for more information.

Prerequisites

Teneo Engine

Your bot needs to be published and you need to know the engine url.

Vonage SMS API

A Vonage account with a 'Virtual Phone Number' configured in it. The steps to setup the account, configure Billing, and buying a virtual number are described ahead.

Important: Adding funds is required to buy a 'Virtual Phone Number'. €10 will suffice to purchase a number and send many SMS messages.

HTTPS

To run the connector locally, ngrok is preferred to make the connector available via HTTPS.

Vonage Setup Instructions

To setup communication by SMS between a Teneo bot and Vonage's SMS API follow these steps:

  1. Register an account here.
  2. Set up Billing From your new account's dashboard, open Billing and Payment. Set up a payment method and add €10 to your funds. This should be enough to purchase a virtual SMS phone number for around 2€ or €4, and send many SMS messages for a few cents each. Pricing varies per country.
  3. Buy a 'Virtual Phone Number' Open the Buy Number section your Vonage dashboard. Select your country to obtain cheaper rates, set 'Features' to SMS, set Type to Mobile, and click 'Search'. Choose a number from the list, click Buy. Note: The process of buying virtual phone numbers may vary across countries.
  4. Ensure that the HTTP Method in Vonage's Default SMS Settings is set to 'POST'.

Connector Setup Instructions

You could run the connector locally or to deploy it on a server of your choice. This is preferred if you're familiar with node.js development and want to have a closer look at the code, or implement modifications and enhancements.

Running the connector locally

The local deployment of this connector allows you to enhance and modify its functionality. To run the connector locally, follow these steps:

  1. Download or clone the connector source code: git clone https://github.com/artificialsolutions/tie-api-example-vonage-sms.git && cd tie-api-example-vonage-sms
  2. Install dependencies by running the following command in the folder where you stored the source: npm install
  3. Create a file called .env in the tie-api-example-Vonage-sms folder. Replace the dummy URL with Teneo Engine URL of your bot. "API key" and "API Secret" are found in Settings TENEO_ENGINE_URL=<your_engine_url> NEXMO_API_KEY=<your API key> NEXMO_API_SECRET=<your API Secret 1> NEXMO_NUMBER=<Virtual Phone Number in E.164 format>
  4. Start the connector: node server.js

Next, we need to make the connector available via https. We'll use ngrok for this.

  1. Start ngrok. The connector runs on port 1337 by default, so we need to start ngrok like this: ngrok http 1337
  2. Running the command above will display a public https URL. Copy it, we will use it as a Incoming Webhook URL in the step below.
  3. Inside your Vonage account's dashboard, navigate to the Virtual Phone Number you purchased in the previous step, and click on Manage. Paste the public https URL provided by ngrok in the Inbound Webhook URL field and append it will /teneochat. It should look something like this: https://abcd1234.ngrok.io/teneochat.
  4. Also Update your Vonage sms settings under Build & Manage -> API Settings, change Webhook format from a GET to a POST

That's it! Text your Virtual Phone Number with a mobile phone, and the Teneo bot will send an SMS reply!